Ottawa mayoral candidate Neil Saravanamuttoo says the city needs to think bigger when it comes to fixing transit, tackling homelessness and making housing more affordable — while giving neighbourhoods a greater say in how growth affects their communities.
The economist and community advocate is making his first run for elected office. Saravanamuttoo grew up in Ottawa’s west end and later studied economics at Carleton University and the London School of Economics. His career included work at Finance Canada and as chief economist of the G20’s Global Infrastructure Hub.
“We’ve got a crisis of affordability. We’ve got a crisis of livability essentially in this city too, and we’ve got a city hall that’s just not accountable to its residents,” he said.
Transit is among the centrepieces of Saravanamuttoo’s campaign. He said a full network redesign would be developed with riders and operators rather than simply adjusting existing routes.
“We are running a lot of legacy routes. We’re running a lot of routes that are just always empty, and we need to go back to square one on this and have a process with riders, with operators and with people that want to be riders,” he said.
His campaign has suggested bringing back some express buses, reviving the former Route 95, adding more neighbourhood routes and concentrating service on high-demand corridors where riders could expect frequent buses without relying heavily on a schedule.
The most eye-catching piece is what Saravanamuttoo calls “Buck a Ride.” Conventional transit trips would cost $1, with riders paying no more than $40 in a month.
“Because it caps out at $40 per month, like 40 rides, it means that it’s cheaper than all of the existing passes,” he said. “So we actually make passes redundant. We don’t need passes anymore.”
Saravanamuttoo has said the plan would rely on anticipated savings if the province assumes responsibility for Ottawa’s LRT infrastructure, arguing those savings should be passed on to riders.
On housing, Saravanamuttoo is proposing a significant expansion of publicly owned, non-market rentals aimed at low- and middle-income households.
His campaign wants to expand Ottawa Community Housing’s ARRIV Properties model, which develops mixed-income housing on a cost-recovery basis. Saravanamuttoo’s target is to increase non-market housing from about five per cent of Ottawa’s housing stock to 10 per cent, which his campaign estimates would require between 25,000 and 30,000 additional homes over as many as two decades.
“What I’m proposing with my housing platform is we need to create a public option for mixed-income housing,” he said. “It is housing that is owned by the city, but is geared towards all income levels and is rented out at cost.”
For people experiencing homelessness, Saravanamuttoo has pledged to bring a model similar to Village Transitiôn in Gatineau to Ottawa. The development uses converted shipping containers as transitional homes alongside services intended to help residents move into permanent housing.
“We cannot hold out for the perfect solution,” Saravanamuttoo said. “We need to go with something good enough. And this is more than good enough.”
For neighbourhoods experiencing the immediate effects of homelessness and the toxic drug crisis, his campaign is proposing same-day access to detox and recovery beds, rapid-response teams to clean up needles and biohazards, more mobile health clinics and additional daytime warming and cooling programs.
Saravanamuttoo would also expand ANCHOR citywide. He previously served on the board of the Centretown Community Health Centre when the alternative crisis-response model was being developed.
Rapid intensification has become another significant issue in Kitchissippi, where new towers and infill developments are adding residents to neighbourhoods with aging infrastructure.
Saravanamuttoo said communities absorbing that growth should receive more direct benefits from it.
“What I’m proposing as mayor is that the communities that are absorbing growth, a lot of the development revenues associated with that growth should stay in the community to fund the upgrades that the community needs, whether that’s hard assets, like sewers, or whether that’s parks or something else,” he said.
His platform proposes earmarking revenues such as community benefit charges for improvements in the neighbourhoods where development occurs. It also calls for participatory budgeting, where residents would vote on some local capital projects, and regional planning panels intended to give councillors from affected areas a greater role in planning decisions.
Infrastructure has particular resonance in Bay Ward following flooding that damaged homes this summer.
Saravanamuttoo said Ottawa needs both upgrades to underground infrastructure and more nature-based stormwater management, including trees and areas designed to retain water during severe storms.
He said the consequences were brought home during a conversation with a Crystal Beach resident whose basement flooded badly. The family lost belongings, including photographs, and now planned to keep many items out of the basement because they no longer trusted it would remain dry.
Saravanamuttoo said the city should have been better prepared and noted that warning signs were already there.
“What’s quite infuriating is that 10 years ago, the city had a study that said an area like Crystal Beach is at risk — at risk of extreme weather causing flooding. And so we knew about this a long time ago, and yet we chose to do nothing about it,” he said.